Since 2014 Roosevelt has been playing daily fantasy sports. He is a part of the less than 1% of the fantasy sports community who has ever placed 1st in a large field tournament with over 20,000 entries. On this blog he shares insights on the plays that he likes for a wide variety of different sports! A Sports 4 Profit blog.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

How To Successfully Manage Your Money Playing Fantasy Football!

Managing your money is just as important as knowing who to pick!

So tomorrow is the first Sunday of the football season and that’s when most of the games in fantasy football will be played! Fantasy football is such a fun game to play. However, it’s not going to be fun if you go broke! I don’t want your wife ready to divorce you because you spent your rent money in the Draftkings millionaire maker thinking you were going to become a millionaire! Follow these tips so that you will have money to play throughout the season.

Tip #1 – Decide What Type Of Player You Are Going To Be

There are two types of players in daily fantasy football. Players that play for fun and players that play for money. Obviously most people play for both, however it is important that you decide right now before you begin what your primary objective is going to be. The reason why is because knowing this will help you determine what your best approach is going to be moving forward.

A player that plays for fun, their primary concern is to have fun! A perfect example of this is all of the guys in your season long fantasy football league at your job. Nobody is in that league because they are trying to earn a living. Everyone is in the league because it’s a fun activity that you can participate in with your co-workers and the potential to win money makes it more fun!

A player that plays for money, their primary concern is to make money. They look at fantasy sports as a way that they can begin to earn money. Fantasy sports becomes like a part time job so to speak. The objective is to consistently make money and use that money to meet their financial objectives. Maybe you are looking to cover some of your bills. Maybe this is your “hanging out” money. Maybe you are looking to reduce some of your debt. Or maybe you want to become a full time professional fantasy sports player and earn a living doing this.

The key is decide now which one you will be as that will determine your approach going forward.

Tip #2 – Determine your budget and stick with it

This is going to be based on whether you are playing for fun or playing for money. If you are playing for fun, decide how much money you want to play with this week. Deposit that money into your account and play with that money. Do not go above that amount. If you win, great, now you have more money to play with next week. If you lose, you can then decide how much money you want to play with next week.

Your budget should ALWAYS be money that you can afford to lose! NEVER EVER EVER use money for bills, money from your savings or money that you need to support yourself to play fantasy sports. This should just be a part of your “entertainment” budget.

If your goal is to play for money then you want to treat it a little bit differently. You should target it in a way similar to the way an investor approaches investing in stock or real estate. Decide on the initial amount that you can afford to “invest” currently and deposit that money into your account. Then as you earn more money you can add more money to your bankroll later on. I recommend adding a set amount each time you get paid. This should be money that you can AFFORD to invest because like with ANY investment there is no guarantee and you could lose the entire investment!

Tip #3 – Determine How Much Money You Will Play With Each Week

If you are playing for fun you can play with your entire bankroll if you want. This is just for fun and if you lose it no big deal. It’s no different than when you go out to Dave & Busters and play the arcade games! If you are playing for money, you should NOT play with your entire bankroll. This is a BAD idea because if you lose you now have no bankroll to play with and you will have to start all over again. Instead, determine a percentage that you feel comfortable playing with. For instance, I never play more than 5% of my bankroll in any giving week.

This is important when you are playing for money because you want your bankroll to not only last, but you want it to grow. The more your bankroll grows the higher the types of games you can play and the more money you can make.

Let’s say you play with 20% of your bankroll each week. Let’s say you completely stink and every week you lose all of your games. Here’s how your bankroll looks after 5 weeks: (I’m rounding to the nearest dollar)

By the end of 5 weeks you have already lost 68% of your bankroll! That’s not what you want to be doing when you are playing to make money!

Now let’s say I play with 5% of my bankroll each week. Let’s say I completely stink and every week I lose all of my games. Here’s how my bankroll looks after 5 weeks: (I’m rounding to the nearest dollar)

By the end of 5 weeks I’ve only lost 22% of my bankroll compared to you losing 68% of my bankroll. This ONE strategy is the MOST IMPORTANT thing that I’ve learned in the year that I’ve been playing fantasy sports. You will lose more than you win. However, on your best nights you will win BIG!!! You want to be playing with AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE when you win BIG so that you can maximize your gains and minimize your losses!

Tip #4 – Determine your game allocation percentage

Every player is different. However, you want to identify what percentage you are going to allocate towards what types of games. For instance, I allocate 80% of my budget each week to cash games and 20% of my budget each week to tournaments. I want MOST of my cash game budget going to games that I have a 50% chance of winning. That’s going to be head to head games where I play one on one against someone else and 50/50 games where the top half of the field win a prize. I will also use a small percentage of my cash game budget to games where I have a 33% chance of winning. That’s going to be triple ups, where the top 1/3 of the field wins and 3 play games where you play against two other people and the top person wins.

For my remaining 20% I use that towards tournaments. These are games where usually the top 20% win cash prizes with the bulk of the money going towards the top. I might also do leagues as well. Like there may be a 10 team league and prizes go to the top 3 players.

Think of it like this. Cash games is your “easy” money. As long as you are consistently better than half the people playing you are going to make easy money. However, you make less of it. The BEST you can do in cash games is double or triple your money. Think of tournaments as your long term money. You won’t win those most of the time, but when you do win, the payout can be huge. If you entered a $20 tournament every week with a $1,000,000 top prize and you never won for 5 years, it would cost you $1,200 over 5 years. However, what if only ONE time you won the top prize? Would a $1,200 investment be worth $1,000,000? Of course it would!

You don’t even need to win the top prize for it to be worth it. What if only one time you won a 40th place prize of $6,000. Would it be worth it? Of course it would you’ve made 5 times your money in 5 years! Most people aren’t doing that in the stock market in 5 years. And the reality is you’re going to win at least SOME money SOMETIMES even if it’s just doubling your money. So you absolutely want to be playing in tournaments. Just don’t spend all your money on tournaments.

It took me a YEAR to learn all of this. So learn from my experience and implement these money management strategies right now starting this week! Your bankroll will thank you for it!

If you’re interested in playing daily fantasy football, Draftkings is the site that I personally recommend! They are even offering a bonus right now where they will match your initial deposit giving you more money to play with over time! Click the banner below to create an account today.

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About Me

Roosevelt is a DIE HARD sports fan who has turned his passion into profit by competing in fantasy sports, writing about fantasy sports and providing education and training to sports fans who are interested in turning their passion for sports into a profitable business or income stream.